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Anton Hansen Tammsaare has the best dick jokes out of all classic estonian writers and I am ready to fight to protect that argument.

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Melville was cooking at the stove near the door. Carol was ashamed to look at him. He was wearing a grubby white apron and smiling a dreamy smile as he stirred his saucepan. Anything less villainous was hard to imagine.

“Mixed Magics” Diana Wynne Jones

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Embers - Sándor Márai

Summary: an elderly general living in his castle in the middle of the woods gets a mysterious letter from an unknown person, after which he commands the staff of the castle to prepare a dinner for two. All the while he repeats words “41 years and 21 years.” A person, who comes to the dinner is his old friend he hasn`t seen for that amount of time for reasons explained later. (Sorry, but if I explain these reasons here, I will be giving away far too much of the plot of the book to make it interesting for you to read in the future)

My Thoughts: I liked it. It was very philosophical in a way, mainly that it is in large part thoughts of a man, who has been told since very young age to keep his thoughts and feeling to himself, has always done so and finally is exprassing himself. It got a little on my nerves that quite a large part of the book is the monologue of the general, but thinking back now, it serves its own purpose. 

I wouldn`t recommend it to anyone who wants something light to read though, because boy, some parts of that book were heavier than a bronze statue of a killer whale. But if you are ready to tackle the issues of friendship, love and life, by all means, give it a go.

Rating: 3. It was very well written, interesting and well thought-out, but it just isn`t the kind of book I like to read, so it`s getting a little lower score here.

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Alice - Christina Henry

Summary: Alice In Wonderland, basically, but this time Alice is in an asylum at the beginning of the story after her first adventure in that magical land (she breaks out of the asylum later) and every creature she meets is some twisted version of the ones we all remember from the original tale. On her travels she this time has a companion, Hatcher, an axe-murderer, who is haunted by his own demons.

My Thoughts: It is a very dark and twisted tale. One should expect it, of course, since its a retelling of Alice In Wonderland, and though the book that was originally known for its absurdity and lack of logic, after that people have turned the tale around and around towards darkness and mad retelling of this book are rather usual already. Everything that was sweet and somehow funny in the original tale, Henry takes and creates a web of madness and darkness.  The whole thing has a little Tim Burton-y feel to it, but has more blood and murder to it.

The good points of this book would be that it is nicely written, has good vocabulary and even though the idea of dark Alice tale is not very new and has been done many times before, the book still manages to feel little fresh. Henry has some talent describing the locations, creating picturesque images of the magical places Alice and Hatcher go to, something that I find lacking in the books quite often. 

There are some twists and turns in the story that feel like they had been planned by a green fanfiction writer but the others have actually the feel of a plot twist. This I can let slip, because she hasn`t written much yet and the art of surprising the reader can be hard, especially with the first book of the series. 

There are some bad things as well, that I would like to shine some light on. After Alice`s escape form the asylum she was kept in and setting on her journey, the book feels somehow disjointed. Because both Alice and Hatcher keep secrets from each other and both have gaps in their memories as well, they don`t always understand everything that is going around them. Because the book is from Alice`s point of view, it means that reader doesn`t always get enough information to understand, what is happening as well which means for a part of the book I was really confused. This can be of course something Henry was actually going for, to make the reader better understand the mind of her Alice.

Rating: 1,5 and that because although I truly enjoyed reading the book and Alice In Wonderland will always have a soft spot in my heart as one of my childhood favourites, which means I will be little lighter on its retelling, there still were too many plot holes that got on my nerves and other inconsistencies as well.

But all together, it was a good retelling, better than some I have read at least. 

Bumblebee

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The Willing Warlock was a born loser.

“Mixed Magics” Diana Wynne Jones